Over the past three years, being sceptical of the war in Ukraine has been about as unpopular a position as it is possible for someone in Britain to hold. But I have always had my doubts.

Let me explain. I do not for one moment wish to suggest that Ukraine started this war, that Vladimir Putin isn’t anything other than a neo-imperialist gangster, or that the defence by the Ukrainians of their native soil has been anything but heroic. Slava Ukraini, indeed. Before anyone calls me a Putin stooge, I know who the goodies and the baddies are. I loathe the suffering.

Instead, what I mean is that I was always sceptical about the wider claims made about the conflict: that it was an existential war for the future of Europe, that support would last indefinitely, that Ukraine’s borders could be returned to their pre-2014 position, and that Russia could be defeated and carved up. I wrote that Kiev’s future would be decided in Washington, not on the battlefield.

So it has proved. A generation of armchair generals who came of age in the glow of the fall of the wall convinced themselves that this was the chance to take a pop at the Ruskies of which the end of history had deprived them. But they did so after thirty years of our governments choosing butter, not guns. We were woefully unprepared to offer Kyiv what they dreamed we could.

We spoke loudly, carried a small stick, and handed most of it to Ukraine, whilst doing, tacitly, what we have done since 1940: rely upon the Americans. If we had wanted to support Kyiv without Washington’s help, we should have ramped up defence spending to 5 per cent in 2022. Instead, we debated cake and made Liz Truss Prime Minister. We were not serious. We still aren’t.

We were happy to give Volodymyr Zelensky what he asked for, a little too late. We were happy to take Ukrainians into our homes, fly their flag, and stage Eurovision. But we weren’t willing to bear the costs our rhetoric entailed. We gave Ukraine our sympathy. But were we never going to send men to die for a Donbas cabbage patch. North Korea has shown more commitment than us.

Certainly, we gave Zelensky enough to beat the Russians to a standstill, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives. His country has been ravaged, a fifth of it occupied and brutalised, and a quarter of its population lost, captured, or fled. But even as morale has sapped, Kyiv has launched various spectacular operations to show it is still in the fight. But the numbers are on Putin’s side.

Once he failed in his initial objective of subduing the country and the Ukrainians failed to push him out of it, the course of the war became clear. Europe and America took Kiev’s cause seriously. The rest of the world did not. Even as we imposed sanctions, China, India, and the rest continued to trade with Russia. To most, Putin is not a pariah, just a statesman, with a lot of cheap energy.

His regime did not collapse, however hard the Telegraph’s comment pages strained to suggest it would. Americans grew weary and distracted. The threat of Beijing loomed larger; the crisis on their border seemed more pressing. So they elected Trump, who is now doing what he always said he would do: ending the war as quickly as possible, whether Zelensky agrees or not.

None of this should have shocked us. But that it has is a lesson in the level of unreality upon which have been operating. As Aris Rousinnos – the most clear-sighted commentator on this war that we have – puts it, “British party politics has…become an exercise in…only dealing with the world – and our country’s material conditions – as our leaders would wish them to be.”

All the talk about raising defence spending to 2.5 per cent a year faster than Rishi Sunak wanted to, about sending our disillusioned teens to protect Zelensky’s youth, or about stealing ourselves for a Third World War which we are not equipped for, is hollow babble and clickbait. We do not realise just how impotent we are. We are, quite frankly, irrelevant – bankrupt, defenceless, and tired.

When Keir Starmer visits the White House, we can expect a lot of chatter about whether Emmanuel Macron was better received and whether those dinners at Trump Tower have bought him the President’s sympathy. But it won’t matter. Trump is not going to change his mind. Without him, there is little we can do to help Kyiv, 100-year security pact or not. Why not a 1000 year one?

We should take this as an opportunity to surrender any remaining aspirations we have of a global role. Ramp up defence spending. But limit our ambitions to protecting our home islands, and those few remaining overseas possessions that Jonathan Powell hasn’t yet scuttled. Our objective should be to make ourselves as independent as possible: reindustrialisation, energy and food security.

Will this happen? Of course not, and not only because Nick Timothy isn’t in Number 10. Yesterday’s men can’t accept their powerlessness, for politicians living off the glory of centuries of Britannia ruling the waves to accept that even our time as the Scrappy Doo to America’s Scooby is now over. We are a greater Sweden, and we should be happy. But we won’t be.

The real victims of this are the Ukrainians. At the cost of countless lives and the ruination of their country, we have convinced them these past three years to persist in a war that we could and would never support them through indefinitely. I don’t know how Boris Johnson or his successors looked Zelensky in the eye. Was it worth it, for a walkabout, and a few street names?

Three years on from Russia’s invasion, Ukraine has shown that Putin’s central belief – that it is not a nation – is wrong. But their war is coming to an end. If, as a continent, we had long since started spending on defence what we pledged and weaned ourselves off Russian energy, we might still be able to help. But we didn’t. So we can’t. “Into the valley of death/Rode the six hundred.”

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